“Bible prayers: Mary prays”
Luke 1:46-47
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
“Lullaby and good night, with roses covered, with cloves adorned, slip under the covers. Tomorrow morning, if God wills, you will wake once again. Good evening, good night, by angels watched, who show you in your dream the Christ-child’s tree. Sleep now blissfully and sweetly, see paradise in your dreams.”
So wrote Johannes Brahms in 1868.
Apparently, or so the story goes, Brahms wrote that song for a friend, Bertha Faber, at the birth of her second child. And ever since then, it’s put millions of children to sleep. (Listen to it long enough, and it’ll probably put you to sleep too!)
Now that’s a nice lullaby. We like that lullaby. But you know, there are some other lullabies that aren’t so nice.
Take, for example, Rock-a-Bye Baby in the Treetop. You know how it goes--”Rock-a-bye baby in the treetop, when the wind blows the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all.”
Now we’re not exactly sure who wrote that song or even why they wrote it. Some say it refers to King James II and his wife Mary at the birth of their son, James III. Others say a pilgrim on the Mayflower wrote it after seeing Native American women rock their babies in a cradle on a tree.
Whatever the real story, singing “When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all,” is an awfully strange lullaby.
Or how about “Ring around the Rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all down”?
Now as children, we think it’s a fun song! Children hold hands and walk around in a circle. Then at the end, they all fall down to the ground and laugh. But as adults, we learn that Ring around the Rosie may not be all fun and games after all.
You see, the story goes that, back in the 14th century, as the bubonic plague was sweeping across Europe, someone wrote that song to say “rosies” were the red marks of the plague, “posies” helped to cover the smell, “ashes” spoke of the bodies of those who died, and “we all fall down” meant falling down dead.
Now isn’t that a nice lullaby to sing your baby to sleep?!
And one more--how about “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty back together again.”
So who (or what!) was Humpty Dumpty?
While some might want you to believe Humpty was an egg, the truth is, according to The Secret History of Nursery Rhymes, Humpty was a cannon that was once mounted high on a city wall. But when another cannon blasted that wall, Humpty came tumbling down to the ground. Then when men tried to lift it up to another part of the wall, since it was so big and so heavy, “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty back together again.” So much for Humpty Dumpty!
And by the way, if you think those lullabies are strange, that’s nothing to say of “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do” or “Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to fetch her poor dog a bone. But when she got there, the cupboard was bare, and so the poor dog had none.” Poor dog!
Now of all the lullabies that mothers (and fathers) have sung across the centuries, one of the most important and most beautiful of all is a song that Mary once sang, (and a prayer she once prayed), two thousand years ago.
This is how it goes: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has looked on the humble estate of His servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name…He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty” (Luke 1:46-49, 51-53).
The words of Luke chapter 1 take us not to Bethlehem and not to Nazareth, but to, what the Bible calls “the hill country of Judea,” to a little town just outside of Jerusalem. And it’s there that we meet two women--one named Mary, and the other, her cousin, Elizabeth.
As you’ll probably remember, just after the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah in the temple, he returned home to his wife, Elizabeth. And not long after he got home, she got pregnant with a son whose name would be John.
And while she was some six months along, the angel Gabriel came once more, this time to a girl named Mary.
This is what he said: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:30-32).
Mary said, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34)
And the angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the Child to be born will be called holy--the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).
Now think about all this for a moment. Here she was--a teenage girl who’s never seen an angel before, who’s never had an encounter like this before, and who’s never received a message like this before. Imagine if it were you! On the one hand, she must have been completely bewildered; and on the other, just a little bit terrified!
So not knowing what else to do or where else to go, she decided to “get out of town” and go to see her cousin Elizabeth.
Now Mary is in Nazareth in the north and Elizabeth is in Judah in the south, probably right about eighty miles away. And since this was long before there were planes, trains, or automobiles, it would have been a good three to four-day journey on foot.
So why did she go? There are probably several reasons. One was she needed to talk about it with someone she knew she could trust. Another was that she needed a good friend who could truly understand. And maybe still another was that she needed confirmation that all this was somehow part of God’s miraculous plan.
Whatever the reason, just as soon as Gabriel left her, she left Nazareth to be with her cousin Elizabeth.
And just as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary call her name, guess what happened? John, six months along, jumped for joy in his mother’s womb. And Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out to Mary, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb…And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:42, 45).
And what did Mary do? She burst into song, what we today call “The Magnificat.”
In a slightly more contemporary translation, this is what she said: “I’m bursting with good news;. I’m dancing the song of my Savior God. God took one good look at me, and look what happened--of all women, I am the most blessed on earth! What God has done for me will never be forgotten, the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others. His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who stand in awe before Him. He bared His arm and showed His strength, scattering the bluffing braggarts. He knocked tyrants off their high horses, and pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet, and the callous rich were left out in the cold. He embraced His chosen child, Israel; He remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high. And all this is exactly what He promised, beginning with Abraham and right up until now” (Luke 1:46-55).
Think about it--in this song, Mary tells of what God has done and how He’s about to change everything--who’s in and who’s out, who’s up and who’s down, who the winners are and who the losers are. In this song, she seems to charge the world with having gotten everything pretty much exactly wrong.
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47).
But you know, there’s more. You see, since Mary was so young and so poor, she may well not have been able to read or write. Boys could. But girls? Not so much.
But even though she could well have been illiterate, she knew her Bible! In fact, as one author wrote, she was “bibline.” “Cut her anywhere,” he said, “and she bleeds Bible.”
Let’s look again at the text. “My soul magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46). That’s I Samuel chapter 2. “From now on, all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48). That’s Genesis chapter 12. “Holy is His name” (Luke 1:49). That’s Psalm 111. “His mercy is for those who fear Him” (Luke 1:50). That’s Psalm 103. “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones” (Luke 1:52). That’s Job chapter 5. “He has filled the hungry with good things” (Luke 1:53). That’s Psalm 107. “He has helped His servant Israel” (Luke 1:54). That’s Isaiah 41. “As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever” (Luke 1:55). That’s Micah chapter 7.
Though she may well not have been able to read or write, God’s Word was written in her heart.
As another author put it: “God loves the underdog, the disqualified, and the unimpressive. And as Mary stands before the Lord, so do we--needy, flawed, with nothing to merit His favor, and nothing to earn but judgment. And while she’s amazed at a God who knows her so well, yet chooses her anyway, so are you. And so am I.” And he said, “Here’s a gift you won’t find under any tree this season--the gift of God’s grace which has come for you in His Son, Jesus Christ.”
Marjorie Tallcott was married and had one child in the midst of the Great Depression. And just like everyone else, her small family had little food and even less money. Somehow, they managed to scrape by.
But as Christmas approached that year, Marjorie and her husband couldn’t afford to buy any presents. So a week before Christmas, they sat down with their six-year-old son, Pete, to explain why there would be no presents this year. “But I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said his father. “We’ll make pictures of the presents we’d like to give to each other.”
So that week, Marjorie and her husband got to work. And when Christmas finally came, the family woke up to find their skimpy little tree adorned with picture-presents of all kinds. There was a black limousine and a red speed boat for dad, a diamond-studded bracelet and a fur coat for mom, and a camping tent and a swimming pool for little Pete.
That’s when Pete pulled out a picture-present of his own--a crayon drawing of a man, a woman, and a little boy with their arms around each other, laughing. And under the picture was just one word: “Us.”
Years later, Marjorie said that, though they had nothing, it was the richest and most beautiful Christmas of all.
When Jesus came that very first Christmas, that too was the greatest gift that anyone could ever give, for He gave Himself fully, wholly, and completely, so that you and I might be saved.
So it’s no wonder that Mary could say, “He who is mighty has done great things for me. Holy is His name” (Luke 1:49).
We thank You, dear Father, for Mary, who gave herself so humbly and completely to You. Grant that we may follow her example in faith and life as we seek to follow You. This we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen